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Thursday, 26 June 2014

IntroductionClandestine operations are an integral part of a country’s
foreign policy, although the heavy reliance on such operations is a reflection
of the authoritarian nature of the government carrying out such operations. The
larger and more powerful the country, and the less inclined to respect national
sovereignty of other nations, the more elaborate the clandestine operations.
Naturally, governments always justify their clandestine operations on the basis
of “national security”. They also justify torturing prisoners held without due
process in violation of the UN human rights covenant. This is as true of the US
in the contemporary era, as it has been of more authoritarian countries. Aside
from the fact that clandestine operations are antithetical to democracy the
execution and consequences of such operations in most cases have proved an
embarrassment if not a disaster for the government authorizing them.

There are many pitfalls in clandestine operations, largely
because anything can go wrong during the operation, but also afterwards because
of unforeseen intermediate and long term consequences of such operations.
Obviously, President Kennedy was not happy with the immediate and longer term
consequences of the Bay of Pigs operation. By contrast, Kissinger was probably
elated with the CIA-backed military coup in Chile that ended the regime and the
life of Salvador Allende. Of course, there were longer term consequences in
Chile, though not nearly as bad as those of Cuba. In short, clandestine
operations are not always immediate unmitigated disasters like the Bay of Pigs.
However, even when they achieve the goal of regime change, there is no
guarantee of any long term stability, as the case of Panama proved where the
CIA chose Manuel Noriega to work with from the 1950s until the end of the 1980s, but then the marines removed
him and the US placed a new government in power.

The lesson here for the 21st century is that
such operations are problematic in a multi-polar world where China and Russia
increasingly perceive a US-NATO threat as menacing to their interests, while
they pursue cordial commercial relations. The best case demonstrating the
disaster of clandestine operations gone seriously wrong is Iraq where the US
and its NATO and Arab allies backed the rebels who have turned out to create a
much larger problem than the regime of Assad they were trying to eliminate. The
US and its allies created ISIS and then scrambled to apportion blame, including
the Shia Iraqi government in the blame game for the Sunni ISIS Jihadists.
Similarly, the Ukraine is another area of US-led clandestine operations gone
seriously wrong with the potential of either a smooth political solution or a
disaster. The question is whether the disasters of such operations really mean
anything to the US, or do they simply see them as minor glitches, which is in
essence the problem with the prevailing mindset in the US.

The nature of clandestine operationsThere is a big difference between intelligence collection
and analysis that agencies, such as the CIA, and authorizing political
assassinations through third parties, using economic or political blackmail to
force individuals in a government to adopt a certain course of action. While
everyone understands that foreign military aid and trade and investment are
tools of influence over the aid/trade/investment recipient, it is a big leap of
faith to comprehend how threatening heavy handed covert operations that would
result in regime change is a legitimate part of a democratic country’s foreign
policy.

Interference in elections, something the US did during the
Cold War in many countries, including Italy, Greece, Vietnam, Chile, Colombia,
among others. Destabilizing a country where there have been open and free
elections, as has been the case in numerous areas, including Ukraine from
autumn 2013 until spring 2014 constitutes foreign intervention that falls in
the domain of imperialism because it demonstrate total disrespect for national
sovereignty. Even worse than clandestine activity to subvert the electoral
process, the use of influence with the military to bring about an end to
civilian rule and install a military regime. This is something that was also
common throughout the Cold War with US helping to overthrow elected regimes –
among the more famous cases include not just CIA-backed coup in Iran and
Guatemala in the early 1950s, but Greece in 1967 and Salvador Allende in 1973.

Amid the frenzy of the early Cold War and the arms race,
the Eisenhower administration authorized clandestine operations that were
glaring violations of international law. For example, the assassination of
Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the then Republic of the Congo, was one of
the most flagrant violations of international law that led to disaster for the
people in central Africa. The dictatorship of Col. Joseph Mobuto proved one of
the most corrupt in the continent, but the US had no problem with it because it
did not ally itself to the USSR. That the dictatorship violated human rights
and drove the country into bankruptcy was not a problem, as long as the regime
was pro-US.

There are many such examples of the US destabilizing a
popular regime by clandestine activity and then backing a dictatorship in the
name of freedom and democracy, often to discover that things are not working
out as initially assumed. This happened with Manuel Noriega of Panama who was a
CIA man, but then dared to strike out on his own, only to be arrested by US
troops in what he believed was sovereign territory that cannot be violated.

The latest such interference from behind the scenes is
Egypt where the military overthrew Islamic Brotherhood’s President Morsi and
proceeded to create a virtual one-party state backed by the US and its allies.
In all such cases of course, there is a backlash that comes back to bite very
hard simply because the absence of a popular mandate and imperial interference
create multiple resentment in the broader population that realizes national and
popular sovereignty have been surrendered.

Besides paramilitary operations that are the heart of
clandestine activity and have a direct impact, the use of mainstream media for
propaganda purposes along with payoffs to politicians, military officers, trade
unionists, and public officials are among the less innocuous forms of clandestine
work. There is no doubt that propaganda to win the hearts and minds of a
segment of the population is very important and deemed an acceptable part of
foreign policy. The only question is the degree to which news organizations and
reporters are no longer reporting news but rather delivering a point of view
with the goal of convincing the public that “black is white”, for example. This
practice goes back to the 19th century when European imperialists
used everyone from newspaper reporters to clergy to convince Africans and
Asiansthat it was best for them to be
under colonial rule.

As part of clandestine operations, molding public opinion
in the 21st century has become much more sophisticated, and not just
because the NSA spies on millions of people around the world, as Snowden
revealed to the world. For example, if the US government is interested in
selling fighter planes to a government that is also looking to buy from the
French, it will use its influence with the armed forces of the buyer but also
plug in numerous paid stories in the media about the importance of buying the
US-made planes. In additions, among the more sophisticated methods of molding
public opinion are the NGO’s that present themselves as neutral parties, when
in fact they could be funded from the government and carrying out its tasks, as
the CIA clearly states in its web site.

NGOs and Clandestine OperationsWhile I expected the CIA web page to be recruiting
personnel for clandestine operations worldwide, I was somewhat surprised when I
saw a rather candid article about the agency’s use of high tech and NGO’s in
intelligence operations, as the excerpt below reveals. “Over the past decade and a half, three phenomena have expanded
dramatically: the availability of information through the diffusion of
information technology; the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as
important players in international affairs; and the demand for international
engagement in failed or weak states, some having suffered from devastating
conflicts. These three facts interact and raise a number of issues for US
policymakers and for the Intelligence Community.”

As the CIA acknowledges, modern technology has meant
radical changes in how clandestine operations are conducted, given that the
web, cell phones and more sophisticated surveillance technology have created
more possibilities for covert operations to be carried out by governments at
the expense of other governments, businesses, private organizations, and
individuals. Besides modern technology from satellites to drones, there is
another vehicle that has been used to carry out clandestine operations, namely,
hundreds of NGOs that are mere fronts for covert operations intended to
destabilize a regime or to bring about regime change. This has been the case in
Ukraine, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Syria, among some of the more notable
examples in news headlines. In fact, the covert role of NGOs in Bolivia,
Ukraine, and Venezuela has been very controversial and an open secret to the
degree that there is a great deal published on the subject.

Arguing that the only goal is to deliver “freedom and
democracy”, as though these are commodities like tomatoes to be delivered from
the producer to the reluctant consumer and not rights to come from the grass roots
of the people involved, the US also argues that its actions are intended to
fight terrorism in all its forms. Needless to say, the definition of terrorism
is one that constantly shifts. For example, the freedom fighters that the US
supported in Syria in the last two years are today’s terrorists known as ISIS
and causing massive damage to Iraq. The same holds true for Ukraine where
neo-Nazis become freedom fighters, while pro-Russia separatists are baptized
terrorists because they oppose of pro-West regime in Kiev.

As a constructed political phenomenon with social and
economic dimensions, ‘the war on terrorism’ fills the void left by the Cold War
in the East-West confrontation needed to maintain the sociopolitical status quo
and the existing economic order that relies to a certain extent on defense
sector-related public spending.That the
US chose to make ‘terrorism’ the cornerstone of its policy was well planned and
calculated in order to maintain the institutional structure that had been built
since the Truman administration.Moreover, the global anti-terrorism campaign provides the US with the
rationale to keep the goal of Pax Americana, namely, an imperial foreign policy
rooted in very large defense sector and intelligence operations spending.

Not to take away anything from the late great scholar Sam
Huntington who developed the clash of civilizations theory, but there is no
"clash of civilizations" objectively speaking, as though by nature or
simply because cultures are different. After all, there is a very long history
of Medieval Islam from the Iberia to the Ottoman Empire proving that harmonious
co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims were very fruitful. Indeed, the
essence of progress in any society at any epoch in history is rooted in cultural
diffusion and this is something that Muslims appreciated long before the Age of
the Enlightenment in 18th century France.

There is no clash between Western Christendom and Islam
today any more than it was during the crusades. Just as with the crusaders
interested in land, trade routes, gold, and glory of power that conquest
injects into disturbed minds, similarly today there are those who think like
crusaders and must manufacture crises. If indeed there is no “class of
civilizations”, other than a manufactured one, the question is how imperial
regimes create such clashes to justify their policies and ambitious goals. The national sovereignty issue along with social justice is
also at the core of the global terrorism campaign. There is something very disturbing
indeed when regimes use the terrorism card as a mass distraction from social,
economic and political problems, but above all to crush all voices demanding
national sovereignty.

US Clandestine Operations and the WebFrom the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 until
today, the US has tried different ways to undermine the Cuban regime. This is
hardly because the tiny island of Cuba poses a threat to the US as many
varieties of ultra-right wingers who have lost claim to their senses claim. However,
these fire-breathing ideologues have a point when they insist that Cuba is a
symbol of resistance to the hegemonic vision of Pan-Americanism that Washington
has imposed from Presidents Monroe to the present. In short, Cuba is a thorn,
much more so than Venezuela recently, and the US simply wishes to impose its
will on the island to complete the picture of a US-dominated Western
Hemisphere.

In 2009, the U.S. government created a “Cuban Twitter”
(dubbed ZunZuneo) intended to sabotage the whose money trail is difficult to
trace, the project tried to circumvent Cuba’s control of the internet,
appealing to young people interested in voicing dissent, but totally unaware
that behind the scheme was the US State Department gathering data on users for
political manipulation. The US set up this project after the Cuban government
arrested and imprisoned Alan Cross for running a clandestine mission using
highly sensitive web technology. The US-AID program for which Cross was working
insisted that it was on a “humanitarian mission”, trying to deliver freedom and
human rights to Cuba, the same island where the US has been hosting political
prisoners without trial at Guantanamo Bay.

Although some Senators expressed concern for such
operations violating US laws, the Obama administration ostensibly more
committed to respect of the law than Bush, did not back down from the
clandestine activity. Setting the issue of legality aside, given that anything
is legal including torturing prisoners held without due process, US Agency for
International Development (USAID), which has a wide array of overt and covert
projects under its umbrella, ran the program. It makes perfect sense that USAID
would run the program, given that it has a longstanding history of running
clandestine operations worldwide, everything from subverting trade unions to
media outlets. It also makes sense that the money trail is almost untraceable,
running from earmarked finds for Pakistan, but involving centers of operations
in Spain and the Caribbean.

Ironically, the Obama administration that had presented
itself as more open and democratic resorted to clandestine activities just as
reminiscent of the early Cold War as Reagan and Bush. Former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton justified such clandestine activity, saying that the U.S. helps
people in “oppressive Internet environments get around filters.” That she made
a point to bring up Arab Spring, revealed the extent of US clandestine
operations in those popular uprisings where the masses were manipulated, just
like the Cubans, without knowing the source.

Conclusions

Will there be a pullback from
clandestine operations because of the disasters in Ukraine where there is no
military solution or Iraq under ISIS threat? My hope is that common sense and
sanity may prevail in Washington, but that is optimistic. On the contrary, all evidence indcates that the contradictions in US foreign policy abound. For example, despite the massive problems that the Jihadist ISIS rebels are causing for the West, including rising oil prices, the Obama administration is actually increasing its financial assistance to Syrian rebels, further destabilizing the entire region. One could argue that the move makes sense because Syria relies on Russia for support and it seems that Iraq has also been looking to Moscow for military assistance; a move that apparently does not sit well with Washington. Although the logic here is to assist the enemies of my enemy, those enemies of my enemies can all turn against me as well in due course. This is a lesson apparently lost on US policy makers who rather not worry now about longer term consequences.

I
see that the smooth-talking Obama administration projecting an image of
multilateralism and legality to the world is in essence not very different than
any Cold War administration Democrat or Republican. The polished façade of
consultation with allies and seeking political solutions to crises conceals a
long-standing policy of clandestine operations that include everything from
USAID to NGOs and mysterious money trails that circumvent congressional
oversight.

Beyond the question of ethics that does not enter into the domain of clandestine operations, there is the question of risks/rewards. As long as the US was the number one superpower, it could engage in clandestine operations even if they went really badly as the Bay of Pigs. In the early 21st century, the world is not the same as it was in the early 1960s, but the US uses the same tactics as though nothing has changed. Just because the Communist bloc collapsed does not means that Russia and China are not rivals to be taken seriously. Nor is Latin America the same now as it was in the mid-20th century when regimes were in the backpocket of the US. As far as the Middle East goes, no matter what the US does other than to pursue multilateral policy and political solutions to conflicts, the end result will not be favorable for the US.

In a wolrd flooded with information overflow, clandestine operations are risky affairs and there is a price to
be paid, just as we see in Ukraine and the Middle East. Determined to escalate
clandestine operations in the face of a declining Pax Americana and rising
Asian economic influence in the world, Washington will actually resort to even
more risky measures in the future as the reality of decline becomes clearer.
After all, US-based multinational corporations have moved assets abroad and
increasingly are seeking to avoid paying the IRS, thus contributing to the
budgetary deficit.

With the role of multinational corporations increasingly
less rooted in the US where they would be contributing to the US economy, the
government will be making desperate efforts to secure market share and influence,
but toward what end?While the US is
engaged in all kinds of expensive and risky clandestine operations that would
presumably strengthen the US economy and the dollar as a reverse currency, the
enemy from within is undermining those efforts, to say nothing of the
unpredictability of the clandestine operations themselves. The decline is
already here for the US and the only question is the delusional manner that
policymakers are handling it.

Saturday, 21 June 2014

There is a relationaship between public sector corruption and private sector corruption, and both impact economic growth growth and development in so far as corruption is parasitic and does not add anything to the economy. Similarly, there is a relationship between endemic corruption and an economy's ability to function according to marketplace rules as publicly stated and obesrved by some entities. However, it would be misleading to conclude that corruption is the cause for lack of growth and development, considering that very corrupt countries, including China, Russia and India have enjoyed substantial growth and development in the last decade and a half, while the less corrupt Western economies have not perfmored as well.

Greece is indeed one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and the most corrupt in the European Union. It is also a country that has been an experiment for austerity measures in the EU in the past four years, an experiment that even by the criteria of the IMF and EU has not achieved the publicly stated goals of reaching public debt of under 120% - the real debt is at 175%, but actually 220% if all public enterprises are taken into account. Nor has Greece the ability to float long term bonds in the private sector because of high interest rates. Similarly, the IMF and EU were wrong that austerity would reduce unemployment because foreign investment would flow into the country. On the contrary, austerity has entailed real - as opposed to official - unemployment of one-third the entire labor force, while investment has been trickling in. A pro-market publication called CAPITAL, recently asked its readers if they won a large amount of money outside of Greece, would they bring it back to invest.

Given the dim prospects of an economy that increasingly resembles those of its northern Balkan neighbors, exactly as Germany stated where Greece ought to be in terms of its status within the EU, the question is what are the domestic political abd business elites doing about reviving the national economy. The answer even greater corruption and more illegal activity than existed before the crisis of 2009.This is not to say that Greece has an economy where narcotics production and trafficking plays a major role as in Afghanistan, Colombia and Mexico. However, it has similarities with economies that rely on the "informal" and illegal economy for roughly one-third of GDP, perhaps even higher given the elaborate money laundering operations.

In early June 2014, the
Greek police, under the direction of US narcotics agents, raided the home of a
wholesale diamond dealer where they found half a ton of heroin. The same day
they raided the villa of a Greek shipping tycoon in whose house agents found
over half ton of the illegal drug, for a total of 1.2 tons. The arrests
included two Turkish nationals that the US agents had been tracking in the
Middle East - Afghanistan is the origin - through Turkey and then Greece where
the shipment of narcotics was headed for Western Europe.The Greek tycoon was on a
list for tax evasion, including the infamous ‘Christine La Garde list’ of more
than two thousand names of the Greek socioeconomic elite that has been engaged
in massive tax evasion among other financial crimes that the Greek government
has yet to prosecute. The alleged narcotics traffickers were well known for
their lavish lifestyles, but they were beyond the reach of the law, and the
only reason they were arrested is because US narcotics agents provided
information about a precise shipment of heroine, including names and addresses.

Holding the number one
maritime spot in the world, Greek shipping companies are the major traffickers
of narcotics, linking Turkish, Greek, Iranian and Albanian heroin traffickers from the
East as well as Colombian, Spanish and Dutch traffickers in the West. There are
many ways to transport narcotics without detection, including the latest of
hiding the heroin bags inside larger bags containing marble dust used in
construction. Additionally, if the tanker ship copntains petrol or crude oil and other chemicals, detection with trained dogs becomes even more difficult. In the specific case of the massive horein shipment onboard a Greek tanker and on the properties ofa shipping tycoon and diamond dealer, an inside informant provided details to authorities of the narcotics shipment.The only way to get the narcotics trade flowing in Greece as well as
other parts of the world is to secure that customs officials, coast guard, police, judges and/or
politicians are all on the payroll. For example, it has been an open secret
that the island of Crete is a major supplier of hashish to Western Europe
(mostly Holland) simply because public officials, including prominent politicians provide cover
and facilitate the drug trade. Everyone knows exactly where the cannabis is
growing because there have been periodic raids in the areas, just as they know it is transported in large quantities onboard trucks
and ships. Despite the publicity of this issue, the drug trade continues
uninterrupted.

According to the UN,
"Balkan and northern routes are the main heroin trafficking corridors
linking Afghanistan to the huge markets of the Russian Federation and Western
Europe. The Balkan route traverses the Islamic Republic of Iran (often via
Pakistan), Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria across South-East Europe to the Western
European market, with an annual market value of some $20 billion. The northern
route runs mainly through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (or Uzbekistan or
Turkmenistan) to Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. The size of that market
is estimated to total $13 billion per year."

Just a few days after the heroin drug bust in the Greek shipping tycoon's home and the diamond dealer's property, another ton of heroin apparently was confiscated by Greek police, again with US-DEA assistance, and based on an insider informant's details of the shipment. Once again, the shipment size required large ship as well as large trucks for transport, indicating major organization behind it involving very well connected people. The combined confiscated heroin for the month of June amounts to 2.2 tons, the largest amount confiscated in the history of Europe and it may be one of the largest confiscations in the world valued at least 400 million euros.

As nice as the news sounds about the DEA-Greek capture of 2.2 tons of heroin seized in June, the problem is the nature of the Greek political economy rooted in the subterranean sector that represents at least a third of the entire GDP. There is the whole question of whether governments ought to measure GDP by including illegal actities, such as drugs, sex trade, etc. After Nigeria decided to include such illegal activities in its economy adding 90% to its GDP, a number of EU countries said they would do the same, while the US said it had "no imediate plans" to count illegal activity money in the GDP. This in indicative of how governments turn a blind eye to illegal economic activity, and provide a sense of legitimacy to it after the fact. If large international banks are laundering drug money, why should the government leave the illegal economic activity out of the picture?

Greek prosecutors have been
trying to go after the elites of Greece, all well known because the country is
so small and the sudden wealth of many of these people cannot possibly be explained. Politicians of the two ruling parties – neo-conservative New
Democracy and the neoliberal PASOK – have been protecting the elites directly
through legislative measures by also by intervening in the justice system,
often threatening to prosecute the prosecutors, especially when they have gone
after the very corrupt top politicians in the current government with cases
involving massive bribery scandals from domestic and foreign companies.

Because there are laws
providing amnesty for ministers, they cannot be prosecuted. When a current case
came from the prosecutors involving the Vice Premier Evangelos Venizelos and
his involvement in a massive corruption scandal regarding submarine contracts
during his tenure as defense minister, the government immediately shut down
parliament, so that the case can be legally “written off” and not be allowed to
be heard and pursued in judicial channels. Because government ministers and
politicians of the ruling parties are so immersed in corruption, they try
through back channels to protect the elites that prosecutors are hunting down.

Several prominent
businessmen, among them Dimitris Kontominas, owner of TV station and insurance
company and well know for his role in scandals involving banks and government
officials, and Angelos Filippidis, former head of Hellenic Postbank, and
several of his colleagues, have been indicted over loan scandals that cost the
former state-owned bank an estimated $700 million. Along with a number of
others receiving loans without any guarantees and never repaying the loans to
the state-owned bank, there are the charges of money laundering operations
against top businesspeople closely linked to the ruling parties. These scandals
involving top businesspeople would not be possible in the absence of top
government officials giving the green light on the loans, which leaves the
question of the motive of government officials.

The biggest scandals
involve the defense sector where it seems that Greece has been paying for
tanks, helicopters and submarines that do not work properly, but it has been
paying a much higher price than the market price. The bribery scandals in this
sector have one former defense minister and other former government officials
serving prison terms, but some of the politicians involved in corruption are
currently in government. The infamous Siemens scandal that involved a number of
New Democracy politicians remains unsolved, but the well known corrupt
politicians who cannot possibly account for their millionaire status are in
government enforcing austerity measures.

While the political and
business elites have bee stealing from the public treasury, they have had no
difficulty insisting that austerity imposed on the middle class and workers
must go one. This despite the reality that reality that the public debt is
unsustainable at 175% of GDP, that it would probably come down to 120% of GDP
in 2022 and unemployment will remain above 15% for the next ten years, with
very low wage scales.Official reports from
various international organizations about labor conditions indicate that Greek
has some of the most archaic labor policies and conditions.

The IMF/EU used
austerity to impose this new system with which the PASOK and New Democracy
right-wing government imposed largely because the domestic financial elites go
along with this policy so that the masses pay for the public debt. Ironically,
these are the same elites that are tax evaders, and smugglers of illegal
cigarettes, narcotics, guns, and petrol; the same elites that launder money
through real estate and professional athletic clubs, the elites that have taken
out most of their money to stash it into offshore accounts, the elites that
paid very little taxes while receiving massive benefits from the state through
their businesses, these elites now present themselves as the best hope for the
revival of the country from the current crisis.

About one-third of
employers owe their employees back wages of a few months to a year.There are currently workers who receive no
payment other than that in kind – food, clothing, shelter. This is not only for
foreign workers in the agricultural fields, but also Greeks who exchange labor
services so they can live. According to the laws of the land, it is illegal to
have anyone working in return for in-kind compensation rather than money wages.
The government has put an end to any powers that trade unionist enjoyed,
including collective bargaining. Using the austerity regime as a pretext, the
government introduced a labor policy that resembles 19th century
conditions. Even when workers take their case to court and even when courts
rule in their favor, the government simply ignores the court ruling, or engages
in endless delays using the legal system.

Given that the country is
swimming in corruption because political and business elites know of no other
way to conduct policy or business, what is the prospect of Greece for the next
few decades? The role of Greece in the world economy is bound to remain as an
intermediary strategic area in the following domains.

1. Main entry port for China's
COSCO Corporation. This means that the Greek ports and some railroad operations
will be under Chinese control in the 21st century, unless something changes
drastically in the geopolitical map. The beneficiary here is China that has
ready cheap access to a strategic port/railroad operation base. In exchange,
Greece secures a few thousand jobs and the promise that China will be buying
bonds in the future to demonstrate confidence in the public sector. The
government provided very low cost operations for the Chinese leasing operations
so that it can attract roughly five billion in investment, or 2% of GDP. Because
Greek shipping companies secure financing from Chinese banks to build their
ships in Chinese shipyards, the quid pro quo is that Greece must make
concessions to the Chinese on port and rail infrastructural systems. After all,
the Greek shipping tycoons have always had a preponderate influence in the
direction of the economy and on public policy, although shipping accounts for a
lower percentage of GDP than tourism and shipping tycoons keep their assets
outside of Greece.

2. A major intermediary for
natural gas coming from Azerbaijan, Russia and the Black Sea/trans-Caucasus
area in the future. This is a capital-intensive investment area that brings few
sustainable benefits for the economy, if we exclude the initial investment in
infrastructure and the relatively low cost of energy. Solar panel and wind
power are other areas of investment, but those are also capital-intensive with
dim prospects for offering anything but huge profits mainly to the German
manufacturers of these sustainable energy systems and to large investors.
Smaller investors are so highly taxed that they cannot compete in this market,
given the considerable capital required for the upstarts.

3.Gulf States investment in tourist-related
real estate development that helps the tourism and gambling industries. However,
profits are taken out just as in shipping, and the investment is not at the
level that it would make much difference is absorbing a portion of the 28%
unemployed.

4.
Varieties of operations ranging from legal state owned gambling (lottery)
operations offered to billionaires linked to the ruling party. That the average taxpayer is well aware of how government subsidizes business elites closely linked to the ruling parties accounts for widespread cynicism and political polarization.

5.Capital-intensive enterprises in select areas
from computer system to banking are areas that will attract some investment as
the political and economic climate becomes more stable. However, there is no
possibility of Greece developing a diversified economy that is capable of
serving the basic domestic needs. This means that it will rely on imports not
only in the domain of capital and intermediary goods, but even agricultural
products competing with domestically-produced ones. The result will be a
perpetually low-wage environment because tourism accounts for about 15% of GDP
at best and is not capable of sustaining the rest of the economy.

Because
small and medium-sized businesses account for the absorption of the labor
force, the prospects of unemployment below five percent is not in the
horizon. The best prospect for college-educated people in Greece is to leave the country, given that Germany and the domestic political and economic elites agree that Greece is relegated to a status much closer to the northern Balkans where living standards are much lower than those in Western Europe. Meanwhile, the government, business analysts and Western apologists of austerity and neoliberalism as well as the media eulogize the success story of Greece that is now deeper in debt, with its future resembling the early Cold War years of socioeconomic and political polarization. How likely is it that there will be a change in the nature of "baksheesh capitalism"? Because this is as much a political economy issue as it is a cultural one it is dirfficult to say that there will be any change in the near future.A cultural and political revolution is unlikely in order to bring about change.

Saturday, 7 June 2014

The topic of corporate-sponsored
terrorism supported by the state has not received much publicity by the mainstream
media in the last three decades. By contrast, “terrorism”, which the US
government deems important and mainstream news organizations cover in depth, has
received enormous coverage in an effort to create a climate of fear and conformity
to the political and socioeconomic status quo and to justify existing foreign policies that violate the national sovereignty of other countries. Controversial because the topic in question
deals with US corporate-sponsored death squads operating in Colombia and at the
very least tolerated if not facilitated by the US and Colombian governments, corporate terrorism is appropriate at a time that since 9/11 it is really difficult to
determine who the US and other countries baptize a "terrorist".

If we consider the fatal attack
on the Belgian Jewish museum (May 2014) where three people were gunned down by a French
Muslim, we could conclude that the individual was a Jihadist to be strongly
condemned by all defenders of the law, human rights, and human decency.It turns out, however, that the gunman had
traveled to Syria to fight against the Assad regime, that is to say, the same
regime that the US and its allies have been financing and fighting in the last
three years. In this instance, the individual who killed three people in the
museum is the same person that the US and its allies would baptize “freedom
fighter” when he was engaged in rebel activity against Assad, but a ‘terrorist’
in the case of the Jewish museum attack.The mainstream media and politicians rarely raise the questions: 1. why do terrorist organizations begin? 2. who finances and supplies them? 3. why are recruits interested in joining; 4. why are there those who do not join but view terrorism as "understandable response" to Western imperialism.

Absurdity’s limits do not stop
with Jihadists that the West praises when they are involved in toppling a
regime that the US opposes – Libya or Syria only a couple of years ago, for example. The distinction between "terrorist" fighting against the same enemy as the US and EU is acceptable somehow, but when they carry out political acts of violence against Western or
pro-Western targets that is unacceptable. Because of such blatant absurdities in US foreign policy
reveal sheer political opportunism and total absence of any ideological
foundation, Robert Ford, former US Ambassador to Syria, recently stated that US
policy of assisting anti-Assad Islamic militants will result in terrorism that
could potentially touch US interests in due course. Ambassador Ford noted the
example of Afghanistan in the 1980s when the US trained Jihadists that would
eventually turn into al-Qaeda.

Similar contradictions as Ambassador
Ford noted are blatant in the case of Ukraine where containment and
encirclement US policies are bound to backfire in the absence of a political
solution or ideological foundation rooted in democratic principles rather than
political opportunism intended for short-term geopolitical and economic gains. Supporting
neo-Nazis among other heterogeneous elements in the Ukraine against the
Russian-backed separatist elements is not merely a manifestation of an incoherent
foreign policy filled with contradictions and aimlessness for the ‘democratic'
West, it also reveals the slow decline of the US in relationship to Asia
with China at the core is forcing Washington toward desperate anachronistic
Cold War solutions to 21st century problems.

CORPORATE-SPONSORED TERRORISM IN COLOMBIA

Without going into detail, there are about three dozen countries where the US has supported neo-Nazis,
neo-Fascists and varieties of terrorists, and an assortment of right wing extremists all as a means of securing economic, military
and/or diplomatic alliances. I will focus on Colombia where there is a clear
cut case study because of US corporate involvement in terrorism backed by
private companies while the US government has turned a blind eye at the very least.

WIKILEAKS
revelations have exposed with incontrovertible documentation that the US
government knew and did nothing about US corporate-backed terrorist activities
in Colombia. Moreover, three court cases against US-based multinational corporations
brought to light the extent of such terrorist activities at a time that the US
has been heavily publicizing its campaign against specifically-targeted “terrorists”
around the world. This alone is an issue that calls into question the hypocrisy regarding the outcry of respect for human rights on the part of the US when in fact human rights are not respected and in fact violated with the acquiescence of Washington.

Whether or not the US has any moral
authority to complain about the legitimate threat of terrorism emanating from
fanatic Muslims is an issue of debate simply because of its historical involvement with them directly or indirectly. Many Western politicians, journalists
and analysts point to 9/11 as the ultimate act of terrorism and the need to
contain terrorism, as though it is possible to accomplish the goal with
conventional military means rather than providing a political solution. Critics
of the war on terror, which the US has created to replace Communism as the
new enemy of the West, argue that official acts of war, including US drone
warfare that has killed thousands of innocent people is much more devastating
than anything individuals or groups can ever deliver in a hundred years. Does drone warfare constitute an act of terror because it takes out innocent civilians?

Putting the moral authority argument aside, as well as the issue of whether
the state with the military means at its disposal has the ultimate power to
deliver mass devastation, my focus here is on US corporate-sponsored death
squads in Colombia with the ultimate goal of securing the market and higher
profits and prevent not just a leftist regime from coming to power, but even
reformists interested in promoting social justice.

In the age of global an
anti-terrorism campaign that the US started at the end of the Cold War as a way
to replace Communism as a global threat and maintain public support for the
status quo, Colombia is one country that has endured terrorist acts in the form
of right wing paramilitary organizations funded and sponsored by US
corporations seemingly above the law because they enjoy the backing of the
state. According to the UN, and human rights organizations, left wing killings carried
out in Colombia have accounted for 12% of clash-related fatalities, while right
wing paramilitary deaths account for 80%. This raises the question of who is behind
right-wing death squads and for what purpose. Similarly, the vast majority of
disappearances and kidnappings are attributed to right wing paramilitary groups
that are at the core of human rights violations. Invariably, this has been ignored by the
Colombian government and the US that has historically close ties with Bogota.

Who is behind the right wing
paramilitary groups? Narcotics trafficking operations is certainly one source, with its
inexorable links to official channels and banks around the world and in the US in
order to launder money conduct the illegal international trade. In fact, there have been reports in the mainstream media about the links of top US and EU banks to drug lords. However, drug
traffickers are hardly the only ones behind paramilitary operations. According
to a number of press reports and human rights organizations, Coca Cola Bottling,
Chiquita Banana and Drummond mining operations are three companies that have in
the past financed right wing paramilitary operations resulting in killings,
disappearances and persecution of trade unionists, labor organizers and leftist
activists. The German TV network Deutsche Wella recently ran a long documentary
on this issue, focusing mostly on Drummond and its role in Colombia.

"LA VIOLENCIA" and Colombia's Legacy of Political Violence In the 1980s, when I wrote my
first book dealing with Colombia, I argued that the inexorable link of the
country’s violent political culture and its externally dependent monocultural economy
with a considerable US corporate and government connection accounts for a
unique situation in Latin America, almost as unique as the US-Panama one
involving the canal that has been a symbol of US hegemony for more than a
century. Among the top five most unequal nations in the world, Colombia is also
a country with one of the world’s worst human rights and labor rights records; a
reality that forces people to struggle for social justice only to encounter domestic
and foreign-based terrorism against their struggle for better living and
working conditions. Colombia’s legacy of violence
linked to the political system and people’s struggle for human rights and
social justice can be traced to the popular
uprising of 1948 and the ten-year era of political violence that followed - La Violencia.

The
period of Colombia’s contemporary history of violence started in April 1948
with the assassination of a Marxist reformist, Jorge Eliecer Gaintan, a
populist caudillo who denounced the corrupt Conservative and Liberal political
parties behind which were the country’s socioeconomic elites and the US. Gaitan
envisioned a new era for Colombia based more on a version of Keynesian economic
policies with the creation of a strong social safety net to lift the peasantry
and working class, while strengthening and broadening the small middle class.
Gaitan’s assassination by right wing elements and the ensuing riots and mass
demonstrations brought together the traditional Liberal and Conservative elites
that feared a popular revolution.

What followed was a ten year
period of political violence between the two competing political parties, but
with victims from peasantry and working class. The era known as La Violencia (1948-1958)
coincided with the early Cold War and it crushed any reformist aspirations that
aimed at addressing the gross socioeconomic inequalities, social justice and
human rights issues, and especially any chance of regime change that would
threatened both the domestic elites and US companies operating in Colombia.
Symptomatic of La Violencia was a guerrilla movement under different groups from
the 1960s to the early 21st century that fought against right-wing
violence intended to maintain the sociopolitical and socioeconomic status quo.

While the Cuban Revolution
encouraged leftist rebel groups in Colombia, as indeed throughout Latin America
in the era of Che Guevara, the US responded with special operations training to
combat leftists in all walks of life, and to cleanse society of leftist
influences in every sector from education to trade unions. Considering that the
Alliance for Progress did nothing essentially to improve living conditions for
peasants and workers, focusing instead on indoctrination and co-optation
programs of potential supporters of reformists and leftist groups, the lower
classes remained skeptical of any domestic or US program supposedly intended to
improve the material lives of the masses.

By 1979 when the Sandinista
revolution and the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala were unfolding,
Colombia was entering the illegal narcotics market, moving rapidly to compete with
Mexico that had become a major supplier for the US drug market. Parallel to the
drug trafficking activity that was moving toward rapid development, reformists
and leftist guerrilla groups were becoming active. With US support, the
government systematically crushed any hope of reform, thus pushing society
toward greater polarization and various means to make a living amid rising population. At the core of Colombia’s politics was a
counter-reformist era characterized by hostile policies toward any progressive
group and toward organized labor, policies that perpetuated the extreme
poor-rich gap and further contributed to radicalization among a segment of the
population. Needless to point out, the US, IMF, World Bank and Western Europe sided with the counter-reformists because it meant greater profits for their corporate operations. However, there was reistance from the grassroots and the governemnt's response was not accommodation but violence amid a cocaine trade that bought not just Colobian officials but US as well.

In the 1980s death squads
targeting trade unionists and other human rights activists became more active.
In the last three decades, the death squads, paramilitary groups and the
military have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of people
(3,000-10,000), thousands disappearing, and at least five million displaced,
all in a campaign to keep the population under a perpetual state of terror to prevent
any kind of revolutionary climate or permit a revolutionary or reformist
movement that would contain the role of the domestic elites and foreign
companies. All along, cocaine became Colombia’s second most significant export
after oil, bringing billions of dollars in revenue. The drug cartels from
Medellin to Cali thrived, largely because of their well established connections
in political and legal institutional structure.

SOFT DRINKS AND DEATH SQUADS

Amid the gangster political
economy that evolved in Colombia by the late 1980s, US corporations began to
play a catalytic role, much more violent than United Fruit Company had played
in Guatemala in the early 1950s in Guatemala where it was responsible for the
end of reformist regimes and the beginning of a violent anti-peasant and
anti-labor dictatorship. In 2001 and 2006, Coca Cola was brought up on charges
in U.S. District Court in Florida, allegedly because the company affiliates had
used death squads to assassinate, torture, kidnap, and threaten trade unionists
in the company’s plants. The lawsuit charged that the Coca Cola Company not
only benefited from the acts of the death squads, but it organized them. The
best angle for the plaintiffs in this case was to argue that Coke was a company
that violated human rights of its own employees, though the reality of death
squad operations goes beyond human rights abuses. COKE denied the allegations,
but at the same time refused an independent investigation.

The interesting thing is that
Colombia’s GDP at the time of the COKE legal issues involving death squads was
lower than the market cap of the multinational bottling corporation. At the
same time, the bottling company had the US government behind it, while Colombia
had no leverage because of the dependent nature of its economy. From the 19th
century era of coffee dependence to petroleum and bananas in the 20th
century, Colombia’s rich natural resources were mostly under foreign control. One
reason that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and before it
other left wing groups made inroads among the masses is because of foreign
exploitation of labor and natural rich resources that have kept the vast
majority chronically poor.

COAL MINING AND DEATH SQUADS

Mining and railroads is another
area where US-based corporations have played a role with death squads in
Colombia. Considering that 65% of the population lives in mining zones and a
large number live on less than $400 per year, the question is who is making the
immense profits at the expense of the Colombian people. Drummond that operates La Loma and Cerrejon
has faced numerous law suits for the assassination of mining and railroad
workers who were trade union activists. Drummond’s private security group, the
notorious right-wing paramilitary organization United Self Defense Forces of
Colombia (AUC) not only engaged in assassinations but also in terrorizing
hundreds of people, including engaging in kidnapping and torturing.

The US embassy in Bogota was well
aware that Drummond’s private security company was engaged in terrorist activities
in north-eastern Colombia, and informed the State Department that Drummond was not
only engaging death squads, but at the same time ignoring labor laws and
environmental standards. This was taking place during the second term of the
Bush administration and early years of Obama, years that coincided with US
global campaign against Islamic terrorists, while turning a blind eye to US
corporate-hired terrorists. One reason that the US ignored this issue is because
Drummond is a major US-based multinational corporation and its Colombian
operations are essential, considering that Colombia ranks sixth largest coal
producer in the world. The only defense of Drummond was that the law suits for
various violations, including death squad activities, stemmed from a Dutch
company’s desire to secure mineral rights in the same area. Meanwhile, the US
government had extended more military aid to the government in Bogota as an
incentive to favor US companies over others.

BANANAS AND DEATH SQUADS.

In
2011, Cincinnati-based Chiquita Banana Company faced 4000 Colombians suing the
company for financing and assisting death squad operations. Four years before the law suit, the banana
company paid a $25 million fee after admitting similar charges brought by the
US Justice Department, a mere drop in the ocean if the courts find against the
company in the more recent case of financing terrorism. According to published documents, Chiquita
paid $1.7 to United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the same
paramilitary group that Drummond engaged. A state-sponsored death squad operation, AUC
is accused of assassinating, torturing, displacing and terrorizing thousands of
people while on Chiquita’s payroll during the 1990s. Chiquita also funded left-wing FARC that was
strongly against AUC, thus the company was playing both sides of the political
spectrum to make sure it had paramilitary cover.

The
company’s legal defense is that terrorist acts carried out by AUC took place in
Colombia by Colombians. Therefore, US courts have no jurisdiction. Chiquita is the same banana company that was
instrumental in overthrowing the reformist regime of Guatemalan President
Jacobo Arbenz in a CIA coup in1954, although back then it was known as United
Fruit Company, the same company responsible for funding assassinations against
radical workers and trade unionists throughout banana plantations of Latin
America.

CONCLUSION

This is
not a case of history repeating itself, but rather large corporations with
enormous assets to buy political influence in all the countries where
they operate, including the home base where the problem starts. United Fruit in
the 1950s would not be able to do anything were it not for the fact that the
State Department and the CIA were not behind it. Chiquita in our time
would not be able to be funding terrorism in Colombia were it not for the US
government allowing it. The same goes for Drummond and COKE.

With one of the closest US ties of any Latin American country,
especially given its geographic proximity to Venezuela that has not always had cordial ties with Washington, Colombia has one of the
world's worst human rights records. It is on the list of just about any
human rights organization, as well as on the list of Western governments
friendly to Bogota. The UN as well as other organizations list Colombia
as one of the world's most dangerous countries for trade unionists,
especially those working for foreign corporations. This is one reason
that trade unionism in Colombia has been falling in the past four
decades, especially since the Reagan era when trade unionism came under
severe attack in the US.

The legal cases I delineated above are ultimately in the hands of the courts. There are allegations, witnesses and of course the results of death squad activities. As to who and how many are responsible inside and outside of Colombia is a matter for judge and jury to determine. However, on the basis of the evidence presented so far, there is a cloud of profound suspicion hanging over the US-based multinationals that are not guilty of poor working conditions or neglect of safety standards that led to problems for their workers. The allegations are very serious because they point to a scheme of foreign corporations using the internal paramilitary networks to achieve their goals.

As a consumer enjoying a
bottle of COKE, eating a CHIQUITA banana inside your warm house heated
by DRUMMOND corporation coal, remember that the blood of workers, human
rights and civil rights, including women's rights activists has been
spilled in Colombia with multiple parties responsible; and for what, the subjugation
of a society so that it dare not try to assert its national economic
sovereignty in the same manner as the US enjoys for itself.

Beyond the case of Colombia, what we have here is a blatant contradiction in US policy when it comes to "terrorism" and the war on terror. While Colombia proves beyond any doubt that human rights, civil rights, labor laws and environmental standards have been grossly violated, it also proves that the US government turns a blind eye to proven cases of death squad activity whose only goal is maximizing profits for multinational corporations. At the same time, anti-government rebels (FARC and ELN) opposed to US patron role in Colombia are labeled terrorists.

One of the modalities in US foreign policy has been able to demonize its enemy as though there is a struggle between the forces of good and evil at work, rather than one set of interests vs. another. Even more absurd, there has been an effort to vastly exaggerate the strength and influence of the demonized "terrorist" enemy as the US defines it on a case by case. This may be understandable from a propaganda point of view because the US government wants public opinion on its side, but in a preverse way such a strategy actually lends greater credibility and strength to the enemy at issue and invariably makes it more appealing with certain disgruntled elements.

Labeling Colombian leftists terrorists, demonizing them and exaggerating their actual strength and influence is no different than the US labeling terrorists Russian separatist rebels in Eastern and south-eastern parts fighting against a pro-US regime that is right wing. Considering that in no case does the US use criteria based on any ideology or democratic princples in labeling a group 'terrorist', given that the sole criterion is political and economic opportunism, the tragic chapter on the anti-terrorist global campaign is nothing but a farce and a facade to preserve political and economic hegemony.

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."